Pittwater Local Government Area (LGA)

The Pittwater LGA covers a total area of 125 square kilometres including the Pittwater estuary.   The dominant land uses include large areas of National Park and residential land, whilst land for commercial, open space and industral purposes are smaller in area.  One quarter of Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park is located within the Pittwater LGA. It forms the largest land use category comprising 43% of the total land use within the LGA.  There have been large changes in the land use of the Pittwater area in the post World War 2 period. It has gradually altered from a rural residential area and popular weekend holiday destination to a largely urban residential status, which today makes up 41% of the land use.  Commercial land use makes up 9% of the total land area, including land within Pittwater's commercial centres, whilst 1% of the land use is comprised of light industrial areas located in pockets at North Narrabeen, Warriewood and Mona Vale.

Environmental Planning

The NSW Government and Pittwater Council control the development process through policies and guidelines which govern the kinds of development which are permitted. The major instrument is the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 which governs the preparation of environmental planning instruments and environmental studies, the determination of development applications, duty of developers to consider environmental impact and exhibition of plans for comment and submission by the public.

Environmental Values in Pittwater

Pittwater has retained many of its natural features and has a relatively low visual impact of existing development. It contains a diversity of natural features not found in many areas of Australia. These include ocean beaches and headlands, inland waterways, coastal lagoons and estuaries, wetlands, creeks, escarpments, beaches, bushland, national parks and ridgelines.  The community has indicated the high value that it places on care and conservation of the Pittwater environment.   As the consent authority for much of the ongoing land use planning in the Pittwater LGA, Council has certain requirements for appropriate building and development which must be complied with by proponents of a development.

Environmental Infrastructure Constraints

There are both environmental and infrastructure constraints on development in the Pittwater LGA. Infrastructure constraints include inadequate regional transport infrastructure, lack of potable water and satisfactory sewerage treatment and disposal.  Environmental constraints include areas of high slope, visual protection of ridgelines, considerations of vegetation/fauna conservation and foreshore protection. The result of these constraints is a lack of suitable land where development can be sustained.

Land Degredation

Contaminated Sites
Three areas are registered by the Environmental Protection Authority as contaminated land under the Unhealthy Building Land Act, being the Warriewood Sewerage Treatment Plant, the Council owned Sullage Depot and selected parts of Warriewood.

Soil Erosion
As most of the land use of the Pittwater area is suburban residential, soil erosion is generally site specific and associated with building works or illegal clearing and not a widespread issue.  However the soil landscapes of the Pittwater area include some of the most erodible soils in NSW. There are three locations in the Pittwater Council area where soil erosion is of particular concern. At these three locations, the soil erosion hazard is high. The sites are Scotland Island, the Western Foreshores and Ingleside.

Degradation of Remnant Vegetation
The Pittwater area is fortunate as it has retained generally large remnants of native vegetation conserved in 267 hectares of various bushland reserves. The area has also retained significant indigenous tree canopy and remnants of bushland on private land.  European settlement and clearing for farming in the late 1800's cleared much of Mona Vale, Warriewood and Newport of native vegetation. In the 1940's and 1950's, Warriewood Valley producers converted to glasshouse based vegetable production. Since then residential development has resulted in further vegetation clearance and tree loss.  These patterns of settlement have had the effect of reducing, fragmenting and disturbing many indigenous plant communities drastically. In order to manage for the retention of the environmental qualities of the Pittwater area, Council has in place an adopted Tree Preservation Order and a Landscape Management Policy, promotes the use of indigenous flora on private land and educates residents about the problems caused for bushland by dumping of weeds from gardens.  Disturbances to the forest ecosystems of Pittwater through development have allowed disruption of the natural systems, resulting in weed invasion, tree decline and altered drainage regimes which have further flow on effects on the loss of landscape values such as biodiversity and aesthetic character.
 

Updated: 12 Jul 2011